September In Review: Winning Streak Broken

This story features SANTOS LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: STO

The company is included in ASX20, ASX50, ASX100, ASX200, ASX300 and ALL-ORDS

After five months of consecutive gains, the ASX200 went backwards in September despite a courageous effort from gold miners.

-ASX200 loses -0.8% (total return) in September
-Materials the only winning sector
-Gold the substantial driver of materials
-Weak month for some favoured heavyweights

By Greg Peel

September is, historically, the worst month of the year for the stock market. However, that trend has become diluted over recent years.

The trend more specifically pertains to Wall Street, to which the ASX200 has historically been anchored, but that correlation has also become diluted in recent years on a divergence of market-driving sectors.

Yet, September this year was indeed a weak month for the Australian stock market, breaking a five-month winning streak for the ASX200. The index closed down -1.4% for the month, for a total return of -0.8% (including dividends).

By contrast, the S&P500 rose 3.5%, underscoring diminishing correlation. The clue here is in the Nasdaq, which shares the Magnificent Seven with the wider index and rose 5.6% on the ever-inflating AI theme.

For Australia, index performance would have been substantially worse if not for the contribution of the materials sector, completely dominated in the month by the ongoing surge in the gold price.

Excluding dividends, the ASX200 materials sector rose 4.6% in September, to be the only sector with a positive performance for the month. All other sectors saw losses, led by energy (-10.6%), consumer staples (-5.6%) and healthcare (-4.9%) in terms of percentage moves, and financials (-1.5%) in terms of market cap impact.

Glittering

Within materials, the gold miner sub-index rose 24.4%. History shows gains in gold mining stocks typically lag gains in the gold price. This has again been the case in 2025. It takes a while for investors to cotton on.

While the energy sector is beholden to oil prices, September’s withdrawal of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co’s (consortium) takeover bid for Australia’s second largest oil & gas producer Santos ((STO)) dragged down all energy peers. It is questionable whether the bid would have ever made it past the FIRB.

In staples, woes continued for Woolworths Group ((WOW)) post a shock FY25 result and guidance in August. In healthcare, sector behemoth CSL’s ((CSL)) share price was trashed in August on the withdrawal of margin recovery guidance and restructure plans, and the mood did not improve in September following Trump’s social media announcement of 100% tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals (CSL has since played down the impact).

Within financials, falls in financial services and insurance companies drove weakness more so than banks, albeit some of the gloss came off Commonwealth Bank ((CBA)) in the month. The RBA’s on-hold September rate decision was also a drag.

Returning to gold, outperformance was not constrained to ASX200-listed miners. Morgan Stanley points out while there were 30 gold miners in the Small Ordinaries index in 2012 and only 18 now, gold’s weighting within the sector has reached 14% of all small caps.

Within large caps, the addition of Genisis Minerals ((GMD)) and Ramelius Resources ((RMS)) into the ASX100 has taken gold stocks to 3.6% of all large caps, eclipsing 2012 levels and matching the covid peak.

Individuals

Morgan Stanley notes the most value for the ASX200 was added in September by gold miners Northern Star Resources ((NST)) (up 27.0 basis points) and Evolution Mining ((EVN)) (17.2). While the winners on pure percentage were gold miner Regis Resources ((RRL)) (33.7%) and, bucking the trend, Droneshield ((DRO)) (44.7%). Thank you Ukraine.

The most index value was lost by heavyweights Woodside Energy ((WDS)) (-24.0 basis points) and CSL (-22.0), while the worst performers were intellectual property services company IPH Ltd ((IPH)) (-21.9%) and still struggling autoparts distributor Bapcor ((BAP)) (-19.1%).

Morgan Stanley cites likely switching amongst the banks, with CBA down -21.2 basis points while National Bank ((NAB)) outperformed.

Macquarie Group ((MQG)) also had a weak month as did another index heavyweight, data centre star Goodman Group ((GMG)).

Commodities

A down-month for the ASX200 for September belies the performance of commodity prices for the month –- typically an index driver.

I might have mentioned gold – that was up (USD terms) 11.0% in the month to be up 47.0% in 2025, but outshone by little brother silver (19.9% and 55.7%).

Copper starred among the base metals (8.0%; 19.8%), aided by a temporary shutdown of a major mine in Peru. There were contrasts among the others, with zinc up 5.6% for the month, but down -1.1% for the year to date, and nickel up a mere 0.3% and down -4.3% for the year. Aluminium put together a double; up 2.7% and 6.3%.

Uranium went nuclear in September with a 10.3% monthly gain within a 14.9% gain year to date, while iron ore has been largely static of late, up 3.6% for the month but only 1.5% for the year.

Fears of global slowing brought about by you know who have seen West Texas crude down -9.1% for the year and -1.7% in September, with Brent down -8.0% and -1.4%.

ASX100 Best and Worst Performers of the month (in %)

ASX200 Best and Worst Performers of the month (in %)

ASX300 Best and Worst Performers of the month (in %)

ALL-TECH Best and Worst Performers of the month (in %)

All index data are ex dividends. Commodities are in USD.

Australia & NZ

The World

Metals & Minerals

Energy

Editor’s Note when viewing the graphics below: all updates include early trading sessions in September.

Technical limitations

If you are reading this story through a third party distribution channel and you cannot see charts included, we apologise, but technical limitations are to blame.

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